60 WORCESTER COUNTY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY, [1906 



We employ a foreman and five men to do the farm work. 

 The foreman attends to plannmg the work and the rotation of 

 crops and keeping the men employed. Each year we do some- 

 thing to beautify the grounds. Maple trees have been planted 

 and the grounds graded, etc. 



I will now give you a little idea of the work on the inside 

 and some of the methods used. 



The work of managing and caring for women prisoners has 

 been advanced and I trust with some degree of benefit. We 

 have read of prisons in the early history of the world and com- 

 paring these with prisons of the present we remember with 

 gladness of heart that the world has had John Howard and 

 Elizabeth Frye. It was not given to them to know of the great 

 advancement in prison work which we have lived to see, but 

 there are still greater heights for us to attain. The important 

 question that I am forced to ask myself daily is — How shall 

 the women in the reformatory be lifted up ? The same methods 

 that are used in the outside v/orld to uplift people must be used 

 in the prison. The terrible enormity of crime must be im- 

 pressed upon them. The first move to be made toward a reas- 

 onable beginning is to form an acquaintance with each individ- 

 ual. Leain about her early home life and what things first led 

 her from home, but this must not impress the woman as being 

 done from curiosity but rather make her feel that a friendly 

 interest and desire to help her prompt these questions. This 

 work must be earnest, individual work. The women must feel 

 that they have in us a friend, although they must also feel that 

 the prison discipline must be enforced. It is our aim to lead 

 our women to forget their past iiregular lives and fill their 

 minds with uplifting thoughts, always keeping their hands as 

 well as their brains employed. Having learned sufficient of 

 their past history to aid us in helping them, close the door to 

 their past life. Now we will not look back. 



The first three years after the institution had been estab- 

 lished, women were sent to prison for a few days, or a few 

 months, but at the end of three years the law was changed and 

 definite sentences assigned, and every woman must stay a year. 



